I've always found wise (and sometimes not so wise) quotes really useful, both within the classroom with students and as a way of introducing a topic when writing materials. I've used lots of different websites to find quotes over the years, but iWise is certainly about to become my new favourite as it seems to have taken wise quotes to a new level.

You can search for quotes by keyword, look at quotes of the day, browse quotes by topic or just click for a random quote.

That isn't all, iWise is compatible with Twitter and allows you to re-tweet quotes or subscribe to and follow tweet feeds from your favourite sources of wisdom.

If you decide to search by topic etc, it even pulls in tweets from Twitter too.

So how about some quote activities with our EFL ESL students?

Here are some suggestions:

Get students to find a random quote and translate it into their own language or find a parallel quote in their own L1.

Collect 8 - 10 quotes on a similar topic and get students to discus them and see which ones they prefer / most agree with.

Get 8 - 10 quotes and cut them in half to create a matching activity. Get your students to match the two halves of each quote.

Get you students to match the quotes to the writer of the quote.

Give your students a list of 6 - 8 topics and ask them to find their favourite quote on each topic, then compare them in class and discus / have a class vote on which is the best (students should try to convince others in the class that theirs is the best quote)

Get two+ quotes on the same topic. Print them up and put them around the class get the students to stand by the one they most like / agree with and discus why.

Choose 2 -3 people and get your students to find their best quotes, then compare that quotes and try to decide which of the people is the wisest.

Give the first part of some quotes to your students and see if your students can write an ending to it.

Find some quotes about someone and see if the students can guess who they are about.

Use a single quote at the start of each lesson to lead in to the theme of the lesson.

Use a single quote at the start of each lesson as a warmer and ask students if they agree / disagree with the quote. They could give it marks out of ten too. Keep a league of favourite quotes.

Why do I like it?

It's free and really simple (but also quite complex)

Some amazing features that really take advantage some Web 2.0 technology

Lots of fast and varied ways to access the quotes

There are loads of quotes from a real range of sources

There is an iPhone ap which can enable you to get all this information via your iPhone or iPod Touch so great for mobile learners

What I'm not so sure about

The site is so dynamic that you can see then loose quotes pretty quickly if you are just browsing.

Some quotes can be a little abstract!

The site is free, but the ap isn't, but it is very cheap (59p in UK). Here's a video showing how you can use it.

NB: I have bought the ap, but haven't tried it yet so this is NOT and endorsement of the ap.

I hope you enjoy iWise and the ideas here. Please leave a comment if you have any other favourite quote sites or suggestions for how you have used quotes with students.

Back in November 2008 I published Part 1 of a series of articles intended to explore the use of WebCams in education. I have now finally got round to writing Part 2 which is a collection of 20 activities EFL ESL teachers can do with their students. The post was instigated by Ana Maria Menezes who sent a video message to me through Tokbox asking for suggestions for ways yo exploit it.

I've used Tokbox because it is a free online video conferencing tool that enables you to communicate using different 'modes'.

These are 1 to 1 live synchronous direct communication

One to many, by creating an asynchronous 'public broadcast stream' - like a series of short video programs

Many to many live synchronous video conferencing

One to many private asynchronous communication - by emailing links to video clips with text message included.

One of the great advantages of Tokbox is that any video messages or clips you create are stored and can be shared either through links or by embedding them into web pages (like the examples below).Here's a rather dated video showing how Tokbox works (The interface has been up dated since this was made , but the functionality is still very similar)

20 WebCam Activities

1. Chinese - video dictation - whispers - Use the video email feature to record a short text. Send it to the first of your students. Ask your student to write down the message and then record it themselves and send it to the next student. Each student should rerecord and send the message on to another, until the last student sends it back to you. You will then see how accurately the message matches to your original text.

2. Interactive video learning diary - You could get students to create an interactive learning diary, they could email you their video summary of what they feel they have learned each day and you could then respond. The videos would form a good learning record and students will be able to look back at them later and see how they have improved - quite literally - and also hear the improvements in their speaking ability. This is also a great way to give your students one-to-one-time which can often be a problem in class.

3. Class survey - Action research - You could send a video message to your students with a class survey question that they could respond to. This would be a good way to carry out classroom research, decide on learning goals and make sure that all students had a means to feedback to you in private and on an individual basis. They could also create their own questions and send them to each other, then feedback in class.

4. The witness - Show half of your students a video clip or picture, that includes a number of people (scenes from films with bank robberies, where a number of people are involved are quite useful for this). Then ask the students to imagine that they are one of the people in the film or picture and they need to describe what happened. Ask them to record a video statement giving their account of what happened in the first person. You can then ask the other students to imagine they are detectives and watch the clips your students have created and make notes to piece together what happened. Afterwards they can watch the original film clip together in class and you can see how well they did and what they missed. Here's an example bank robbery scene

5. Favourite poems or haiku - Students could record themselves reading their favourite poem or haiku, you could then embed the videos into a web page or blog as a class poetry collection.

6. Video twitter - Using the feed feature you could create a kind of video Twitter, with your students video micro-blogging about learning English, their day at school, or any topic they find interesting.

7. Text and video error correction - Using the video email feature, you could record a video of yourself reading a text, then add the text within the email message. You could include some errors in the text and get them to watch the video and correct the errors.

8. Create a collaborative story - Email students a video with the first line of a story and ask them to record your line of the story and add their own, then pass it back, or pass it on to another student. This way you could build up a story between the group over a period of time.

9. Tip of the day - Send you students a learning tip each day by video email. These could be exam tips, study tips, recommended website etc.(The URL for the website would appear in the text part of the message below the video - see: http://www.tokbox.com/vm/lwrtuj1jhuog)

10. Video dictation - Send a video email of yourself dictating a text and ask your students to watch and write the text in the email and send it back to you for correction.

11. Vocabulary record / word of the day - You could ask your students to create a video to record the words and example sentences. You could also do something like this yourself as a kind of 'Word of the Day' channel.

12. News Reports - Ask students to read the news ( in English or their own first language) and then produce a video news report on one of the main stories that they are interested in. They could also create their own local or school video news channel for other students to subscribe to.

13. Present continuous (sound on or off) - You can record video clips to demonstrate present continuous sentences. You can do this with sound on or with sound off and the students can guess the sentence .

14. Questions for response - You could set up clips with questions and ask your students to respond online. They could also set up a sequence of their own questions for other students to respond to.

15. Guess the object - You or students could record a description of and object and viewers have to listen and guess what the object is. Getting students to create these clips will help them to be concise and really identify the key concepts behind describing objects.

16. Sales pitch - A variation on the idea above is to ask students to produce a video trying to convince users to buy a particular object. Again this helps them to identify key concepts, gives them practice with using language of persuasion and it may well help them to push for faster speaking speeds and better fluency.

17. Moods - You can create video clips of yourself or your students expressing different moods. This can help them to learn the vocabulary of the moods, but you could also use it to get students to predict the cause of the mood ( and practice present perfect; "He's angry because he has just been made redundant." etc.)

18. Live tutoring support - Tokbox and video conferencing is an ideal tool for supporting distance learners and doing 'face to face' tutorials.

19. Video interviews - You could get in touch with someone for your class to interview. Just have one computer plus camera set up in class, and a visiting expert, friend or colleague on the other end for your students to interview. They could also interview an expert in groups from home with a conference call. The interview doesn't have to be done 'live' it could also be done through a series of email video messages sent to the interviewee.You can try it here by watching this video and then clicking reply.

20. Video lesson with conferencing - You could use the conference call to videocast your lesson or presentation to a group of distance learners.

I hope you find these suggestions useful and manage to use some of them with your students. Do drop me a line if you have other recommendations for useful video conferencing tools or activities. You can find more video related activities for EFL ESL here.